Someday I'm going to get to buy a good used tapping head that doesn't go up to almost new price.
Anyway, in the mean time I have been looking at the various taps and suggestions for use with a tapping head. It seems like a regular straight tap like comes in every generic tap & die set can't, or atleast shouldn't, be used in a continuous tapping machine. The stuff I've read seems to say you need to use either a spiral tap or a gun tap.
Here is what I understand about the two types. Please correct me where I go wrong.
BOTH. Bother are designed to move chips out of the hole.
Gun taps shoot the chips forward and are suitable for through hole tapping.
Spiral taps conveyor the chips up flutes on the tap and back out the top of the hole and are suitable for blind hole tapping.
Here are my questions. Should you only use them as described above? Is there any reason not to use a spiral tap for both through holes and blind holes? Obviously the gun tap would have a problem in blind holes if tapping to depth.